How to Homebrew Sake
by Mutsuo Hoshido, hoshido@gman.rme.sony.co.jp
Homebrew Sake is very easy to brew using your simple cooking tools and you can
enjoy Sake taste.
Homebrew Sake,we call 'doburoku', rather haze Sake, had been a culture of Japan
and even under the previously strict control of Liquor Tax law,some
Buddhist temples
or Shinto Shrines have been brewing thier own 'doburoku' to serve their
festival or
ceremony.
Following is one of the simple Sake brewing procedures to enjoy Sake taste.
Materials:
- 1500g(3.3lb) rice,
- 400g(0.9lb)Kome-koji,
- 5g(0.18oz)citric acid
- Water.
- 5g (0.18oz) dry bread yeast. Or equivalent amount of Beer Ale
yeast,Wine yeast
or Wyeast Sake depending on you taste.
You will be able to get Kome-koji made from Koji or Koji-kin, a kind of
white fungi,
together with steam cooked rice at your grocery stores or homebrew stores.
If you only can get Koji or Koji-kin, you can easily make your fresh
Kome-koji
together with steam cooked rice by yourself using your picnic ice box.
Later I will show you how to make Kome-koji. If necessary, I can send
you some Koji
or Koji-kin by air mail, because Kome-koji is too heavy and too easily
going bad to
send over the ocean.
Equipment:
- Electric rice cooker(steam cooker is better).
- Basket to cut water.
- 10liters(2.6gal) enamel or stainless steel deep cooking pot with lid.
- (Equivalent plastic or glass container can be used.)
- Big spoon(stainless is better) .
Procedure:
1.Wash and soak the 1500g(3.3lb) rice for about five hours and
then put the
rice in a basket for at least 20 min. to cut water.
2.Cook the rice with 1800ml(0.48gal)water using the rice cooker.
Steam cooking is recommendable for better taste. I used a
pressure cooker to
steam cook rice using stainless steel bastket suspended in it.
3.After cooking the rice,cool down the rice to 30deg C(86deg F).
4.Melt the citric acid with 2.4liter(0.5gal) water in the enamel
cooking pot.
Citric acid will prevent the contamination of bacteria and add
slight sour
taste to your Sake.
Depending on your taste, you can reduce the Citric acid.
Also you can use Lactic acid or you can use a Lemon or Lime juice.
5.Add 400g koji and well melt it by agitating with the big spoon.
6.In thirty minuets, add the cooled cooked rice and well mix by
agitating
with the big spoon.
7.Pitch the yeast and place the lid on the pot and keep it at
room temperautre.
Lower temperature will cause slower and longer fermentaion and
will result
in better taste.
8.Stir it at least once a day.
In two or three days you can enjoy very nice Sake aroma.
Be careful about bacteria contamination. I used 70% ethyl
alcohol spay
around the pot and to myself every time.
9.In two weeks fermentation will seem to end.
10.Filter the sludge using a sterilized basket or cheese cloth.
11.Enjoy the filtered Sake. Do not drink too much. Alcohol content
is two to
three times more than beer. Cooling the filtered Sake is the
best way to
taste. If you want crystal clear Sake,separate the further
sludge by
decanting. This will greatly reduce Sake yield.
12.Remaining sludge can be used to cook vegetable pickles in a
refrigerator.
A cucumber is the most suitable vegetable.
Of course you can put white fish meat and then grill them.
How to make Kome-koji from Koji or Koji-kin.
1.Wash and soak the 400g(0.9lb) rice for about five hours and
then put the
rice in a basket for at least 20 min. to cut water.
2.Steam cook the rice. Steam cooked rice looks slightly
transparent, not white.
3.Cool down the cooked rice to 30deg C(86deg F). Put the rice into an
enamel or stainless steel thin container and add 2 to 3g of
Koji or Koji-kin
and well mix them. Cover the container with water moistened
cheese cloth
or cotton cloth to prevent drying.
4.Put the container in a picnic ice box together with 35deg
C(95deg F) warm
water bottles to keep the inside at 30deg C(86deg F) for 40 hours.
The amount of the warm water will preferably be at least 8
litters(2 gal).
If necessary, change the warm water to keep the temperature
constant.
In 10 hours,mix again the mixture of the cooked rice and Koji
using a cooking
sparula. Already you can notice the whitened rice and get good
aroma.
I used a digital thermometer to measure the temperature inside.
Very useful.
5.Further keep the mixture at 30deg C(86deg F) for 30 hours.
6.You can get white colored Kome-koji covered with white fungus.
If real "Amasake" is available (sake sludge mixed with suger is not real
amasake),directly pitch dry yeast in a bottle.You can brew Sake.
In Japan, at present, fermenting more than 1% alcohol without license is
illegal.
Before world war one, I heard that every family had been enjoying homebrewing
Sake. It was the Japanese culture. But the war destroyed the culture too.
At present,members of " Homebrew News Letter" is only arround 300. It is
supposed
that about ten thousand homebrewers exist in Japan. We do not only homebrew
beers
but also homebrew Sake.
In 1992, the minimum amount of licenced beer production was reduced from
2000kl/year
to 60kl/year by the pressure from the USA. It was the dawn of local micro beer
brewers. We, most of Japanese homebrewers, are wanting more pressure from
the USA
for free homebrew and for free trade to get cheeper homebrew ingredients.
Commercial Sake brewers use very expensive materials such as 50% polished
special kind of rice,which looks very small crystal beads because of the
excessive
polishing process. And the special rice kinds grown only for Sake are called
Yamadanishiki,Miyamanishiki,reihou,gyokuei and so on.
We never eat such a rice, we usually eat slightly polished normal kinds of rice
grown only for eating. When I visited Sake brewer near my house,the manager
told
me that he tried to eat that sake rice but that it was not tasty.
Homebrew Sake is very simple to make and satisfactorily tasty if you do not
compare
with commercial high class pure rice Sake. I heard that US Sake brewers
have to produce
only pure rice Sake because of US tax law. Pure Rice Sake means Sake only
from rice.
In Japan, tax law allows mixture of so called industrial ethyl alcohol into
Sake
within a certain percentage. Pure rice sake (Junmaishu) is very expensive.
I hope you enjoy homebrew Sake.
Mutsuo Hoshido,
hoshido@gman.rme.sony.co.jp
Last update: 25 July 1996